- BAGHDAD (AP) -- A huge explosion
believed to have been caused by a car bomb rocked central Baghdad on Sunday
near the Baghdad Hotel, which is thought to be a headquarters of the US
Central Intelligence Agency in the Iraqi capital.
-
- Sky News reported on Sunday that at least 10 people died
in the explosion. Other reports say seven people died.
-
- Bystander Hamid Rahim, 22, said he saw about a half dozen
injured taken away in police cars.
-
- Sevan Armin, 33, said a car approched the Baghdad Hotel
on the wrong side of the street. "It was traveling at high speed.
The guards at the gate fired on it. The car hit the concrete blast barrier
and exploded." Armin had a slight head injury.
-
- Sabah Ulam, 37, was in a car right behind the one or
two that exploded.
-
- "I was in my car and the car in front of us, a 1990
Toyota Corolla, suddenly turned into the hotel. I saw the driver. He was
not an Iraqi, he had a lighter complexion. He did not have a beard and
was wearing a hat. We were protected by the wall. A policeman shot at him
four times, and then there was the explosion." He said the windows
in his car were shattered.
-
- Rahim said two cars tried to enter a sidestreet leading
from Saadoun Street to the Baghdad Hotel, but both exploded. It was unclear
how many people had been killed or injured.
-
- He and hotel co-worker Karim Abdel al-Hussein, 23, both
said two cars approached the barricaded street at high speed and one or
both got behind the sidestreet barricade. They believe both exploded before
reaching the hotel.
-
- Sirens could heard as emergency vehicles rushed to the
scene. US helicopters circled overhead. US soldiers in Humvees were at
the site.
-
- The blast rattled windows in the Palestine Hotel, home
to many members of the international press corps covering the aftermath
of the US-led war in Iraq.
-
- copyright Media24 Ltd. All rights reserved.
-
- http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1429024,00.html
-
|
